Ambrose Stallion
The younger Stallion brother, the much nicer one. He was often regarded as mad due to the uncontrollable visions which plagued him since childhood. Backstory Born in Destrier, Bern as the second and last son of House Stallion, Ambrose's early childhood was relatively carefree. What free time he had was spent with his older brother, Alain Stallion, as they got into all sorts of trouble around Destrier Castle. Though they were not the only children there, the two nevertheless preferred each other's company due to being closest in age, character and rank. Ambrose was usually the one being dragged along with his brother's latest pranka and while he rarely instigated them, he usually happily went along. Since the two often had to get each other out of trouble, they developed a secret hand language to better communicate and making their stories consistent without their parents finding out. That all changed one autumn day when he was six years old. Out of nowhere, while spending a rainy day inside with Alain, Ambrose suddenly froze up and stared off into space. When he eventually came out of it a few minutes later, he kept talking about seeing things that were not there, something he had seen in the future. But this halfway lucid state only lasted a few minutes before this repeated itself, except this time he saw something different. This kept happening. Sometimes the breaks between visions would be a few hours, sometimes a few minutes, but whatever it was, he saw things no six year old child should ever see. No physician could figure out what was wrong with him, since aside from the visions, he appeared perfectly healthy, if exhausted by their frequency. However, a diagnosis was eventually made: madness. For whatever reason, the youngest son of House Stallion had gone insane and there was no cure. The next years of Ambrose's life were spent in increasing isolation. Due to the unpredictability of his visions, it was dangerous for him to do much, resulting in him spending more time inside the castle. He never ventured outside the castle grounds, save for occassional trips to the physician's college and the Cathedral that were always undertaken with supervision. The mysterious and unexplained nature of his madness, as well as the stigma associated with madness, caused many of those who met him, nobility and servants alike, to treat him with either, fear or contempt. Many of his tutors were angry at him for being unable to concentrate or wondered why they bothered to teach a mad child. His parents, while far kinder in their treatment of him, nevertheless treated him like a madman. The only one who seemingly did not was Alain. However, with the advent of his younger brother's madness, his training to eventually take over House Stallion begun in earnest and he barely had any time to spend comforting his brother. Alain's increasing emotional coldness due to the pressures of having to live up to the expectations placed on him also led Ambrose to believe his brother had turned on him with the others. All the while, the visions continued to show him disturbing scenes, scenes which he was convinced were the future and were inevitably going to happen. Worst of all, his memory, which had been excellent his whole life, refused to let him forget everything he witnessed. All this took a toll on Ambrose's psyche. He watched his brother grow and continue to become, in his eyes, the ideal Stallion noble, while Ambrose was the greatest failure. He was incapable of fighting, of riding a horse or shooting a bow, nor was he promised any semblance of a normal life as long as his madness continued. A normal life that contained, among other things, love or a family. Nobody, whether for politics or for love, wanted to be subjected to a marriage with a madman and Ambrose did not even bother trying. However, he could not stop the growing bitterness and anger at everyone for treating him as a madman, since he felt in his heart that what he saw was real. In his feelings towards Alain, this manifested as envy, something which to his great distressed coexisted with the earlier love for his brother, which had not diminished. All these emotions had their most severe spike at the wedding of his brother and Margot Brachyura, where he made another unpleasant discovery: the frequency of his visions could be increased by alcohol. The resulting fiasco, in which he made a fool of himself in front of the nobility of the kingdom, made him swear off alcohol forever. Furthermore, Alain now had his own family, sealed by the birth of his daughter soon after his wedding. While he still was kind and loving towards Ambrose, and ss Ambrose wanted to cling to him, he felt like he had no right to burden his brother with his madness, especially since the envy over the difference between their lives continued to eat away at him. Nevertheless, he did feel that his family cared for him in some way, even if his parents treated him as a madman and his brother had his own life to live. Which is why his father's death in the winter of 1284 was so difficult. However, the death also caused the neighbouring kingdom of Lange to try to invade, seizing the opportunity while the new Grand Duke was still supposedly weak and inexperienced. Alain left to go to war. Maura, Ambrose's mother, could not handle both the death of her husband, her son's departure, and her worry over her other son's madness on top of her already advanced age and pre-existing illness. She died the following winter, leaving Ambrose completely alone. With his brother away and having to deal with both the contempt from everyone around him and the horror of his visions by himself, Ambrose lost the will to live. He began to plan to take his own life. Had it not been for Alain's victorious return from the war, he would have succeeded. But it was this that broke through Alain's coldness and revealed his true feelings for his brother, as well as planting the idea in his head to use his visions for good. It was after this attempt that Ambrose began to try his hand at reverse-engineering the things he had seen in the future. His excellent memory aided him here in that he could accurately reproduce what he had seen. However, he still had to learn from trial and error, often using up large sheets of parchment as he tried to figure out how something worked. There was plenty of time, however, and now that he had something to occupy his time with aside from watching his visions in horror, Ambrose's depair began to fade. While he was still isolated by the continuing visions, and the stigma of his madness had not subsided, he had a distraction and a goal to strive for. He also hoped to give something back to his brother, who after his victory over Lange, had gotten fully into the swing of governing Bern. It was also then that, acquiring the need to concentrate on something, he discovered tea. He continued to work. It took several years for him to make anything functional, and it was a relatively simple device, but it was something that was distinctively his. Most of his designs were impractical but he built the few that could be built. Nevertheless, Ambrose still remained very reclusive and secretive, only going outside to take a break from his workshop or to acquire something he needed. He rarely interacted with anybody either, being used to the contempt and fear that he was often viewed with. The only one who he saw regularly was Alain, who had taken pains to make sure that his brother was going to be alright. Slowly, eventually, he gained enough experience and saw enough to even start creating things on his own. One of the first inventions he made by himself was the cane for his brother after he broke his leg during the second war against Lange. But that was not the only thing that had changed. The visions had shown him so many myriads of suffering and forced him to watch it. His own experienced with his bitterness and sadness too, had heightened his empathy. While few people wanted to listen to advice from a madman, advice that had dubious sources too, he still listened to them, patiently and calmly. He was in no rush and he felt like he was doing something for them simply by listening, that his presense was welcome. Ambrose desperately wanted to help people with anything. There was so much wrong with the world that was happening and was going to happen, he just wanted to allieviate it somehow. But his timidness prevented him from approaching people and his desperation for company prompted him to talk too much sometimes. The visions, while lessening in intensity and frequency, continued to be just as terrifying as everm and still a symptom of madness. Ambrose was still lonely and starved for friends. Then, upon the death of King Starmey, Alain decided he needed the skill of his brother in Medieville. Main Roleplay (He did things.) Personality (Like a box of kittens) Relationships (Dad to ALL the woobs.)